View CMIS Forward Plan Item

In July 2019, Cabinet agreed to receive £1.1m pounds from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to run the Future Parks Accelerator (FPA) Programme, with the huge ambition to embed the value of green spaces across the Council – within Health and Wellbeing, Employability/ Skills, Children’s and Housing/Development.

As part of our engagement process in June 2020, we identified 14 proposals we wanted to test which could support embedding the value of green space. The programme was due to end in May 2021, but due to the impact of Covid 19 and the great work the programme has already achieved, we were successful in securing an extension. This means the programme will now finish in March 2022, and that the Council received an extra £204,000 to support the work to continue.

We have seen improvements in how residents engage with green spaces across our three of our pilot sites (listed above), with work due to commence on Druids Heath housing development in Jan 2021. We are now in the process of producing implementation guides of key proposals on how to do this across the City.

We have made strong links with R20 as well as planning, showing the value FPA is already having across the Council.

We are requesting that Cabinet assure our funders, HLF, that the Council will support the continued work of our FPA programme throughout the extension period.